The rose
by Bine2889
Summary: Just a oneshot. After TS, Ranger's doing some thinking.


I don't own anything and I don't make any profit. This is just a one-shot.

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"_**The rose"**_

I was driving south from Trenton. After the incident with Scrog I had decided that I wanted a deeper relationship with my daughter. I didn't only want to be a signature on a birthday card. So now I was driving towards Florida to spend some time with Julie.

I turned the radio on. The next I knew soft piano tunes sounded through the car.

I had to smile. It was the CD Julie had listened to while I had driven her and her mother to the airport.

_Some say love, it is a river  
That drowns the tender reed.  
Some say love, it is a razor  
That leaves your soul to bleed.  
_

I had to fight the urge to turn the sound of. And yet I knew that I wouldn't be able to do it anyway. I knew that Julie wasn't the only reason why I was driving South right now. It was Stephanie.

_  
Some say love, it is a hunger  
An endless, aching need  
I say love, it is a flower,  
And you, it's only seed. _

Yesterday I saw the picture of her. In her bedroom. Morelli was holding her back. She was pale as a gost and she was looking at the floor. Her eyes were glued to the floor. And the expression on her face….I don't know how to describe it. Disbelief, utter shock, desperation, loss and something else, that I didn't want to think of.

_  
It's the heart afraid of breaking  
That never learns to dance  
It's the dream afraid of waking  
That never takes the chance  
_

No, I wasn't taking a chance. When I had been lying in hospital, Tank had asked me, why I never took a chance with Stephanie. I had told him that I couldn't give her what she wanted and that it would be too dangerous for her. He had told me that Stephanie would slap me for that comment. And he was right. She maybe wouldn't slap me, but she would be angry. Or disappointed. But I didn't want to think of it. I didn't want to think that I would ever disappoint her. I was the man to whom she looked up as if he could take on the world…and as if she knew that he would do it in a heartbeat…just for her.

_  
It's the one, who won't be taken,  
Who cannot seem to give  
And the soul afraid of dying  
That never learns to live.  
_

I was lying to myself and I knew it. I was driving, not flying, so I would have time to think, although I dreaded it. I knew that I was afraid because during the Scrog thing our relationship had changed. I needed her. I knew that now. I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to deny myself her love anymore.

I hadn't been forced to stay at her appartment. There had been nobody Tank needed to put into the safe house. It had been free the whole time. But it had also been loonely.

_  
When the night has been too lonely  
And the road has been too long.  
And you think that love is only  
For the lucky and the strong._

I often drove to her apartment after a long day. I had always told myself that it was just to make sure that she was okay. But I couldn't do that anymore. It had been my need to see her. She had this special charism. As if everything around her was bright. I had to laugh everytime she tried to look bad-ass. Sure, it was sexy as hell but her heart was good so I just didn't see her like that. And maybe that was the reason why I wanted to protect her. From everything bad. From myself. From my love.

But Tank was right. I should give us a chance. She deserved it. I couldn't decide what's good for her, that had been Morelli's fault and his downfall. I wouldn't make the same fault. I alsways got my man so I would get my woman, too.

I chuckled. Maybe we were more alike than I had thought.

I took the next exit. Three hours later I knocked on her door.

She opened the door.

_  
Just remember in the winter  
Far beneath the bitter snow  
Lies the seed that with the sun's love,  
In the spring, becomes the rose._

"Ranger, since when do you knock? And I thought you would visit ….."

I pulled a red rose from behind my back.

_And they lived happily ever after...

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_

I hope you like it. Reviews, please. The song was :_Westlife- The rose_


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